There is no way the sun and moon are 3000 miles away.

What heat does a spotlight give out 3 thousand mile away? How hot is the bulb, I guess i'm asking

The sun is not a spotlight. The sun is a sphere which shines light from all points of its surface. Its light is limited to a spot of light upon the earth, which is what we mean by spotlight.

How can a glowing sphere that circles above a flat surface, focus it's light? Plug a light bulb into the socket of the room you're in now without a shade and tell me where the darkness is.

How can a glowing sphere that circles above a flat surface, focus it's light? Plug a light bulb into the socket of the room you're in now without a shade and tell me where the darkness is.

Actually he is right that a spherical sun would cast a circular area of light on a plane. However, the area would have a different shape than the one mapped from the surface of a sphere with the same light shining on it. Tom Bishop acknowledges the fact that the sunlight pattern would be different on a sphere:

Quote from: Tom Bishop on January 13, 2012, 04:08:50 PM

The answer is no, the area of sunlight would not be the same on a Flat Earth as it would be on a Round Earth. The earth is not round, it's flat.

Okay, so what you're telling me then is that the daylight maps, like this one, are wrong. That means that high-altitude photos that include the day-night terminator must show it in a different place or having a different curvature than expected. Please provide evidence that this has ever happened.

Instead of responding to the request in bold, Tom uses this copout:

The values in both of those links are from calculators based on RET, not direct observations of reality.

(He thinks calculators aren't based on direct observations of reality.)

I repeated my request for evidence twice:

The fact that the images are computer-generated is irrelevant. Computer programs use data. The veracity of the data is what we're talking about here.

You think the data doesn't represent reality. Okay. I already acknowledged that that is your belief. Now answer the rest of my post:

That means that high-altitude photos that include the day-night terminator must show it in a different place or having a different curvature than expected. Please provide evidence that this has ever happened.

Or for that matter, provide any evidence that reality ever disagrees with this data.

You see, if your claim (that the calculators are wrong) is the correct one, then your proof would be the easiest to produce. We can, and have, given you several repeatable demonstrations that the predictions are correct, but these could conceivably be coincidences. For you, however, all you need to do is provide one repeatable demonstration that the predictions are ever wrong, and you will have proved your claim. Why can't you do this?

Of course, it was at this point that Tom abandoned the topic.

So just to save you some time, this is where you inquiry ultimately leads to: Tom beating around the bush and then running away.

Quote from: Inlandknights on January 26, 2012, 11:38:19 PM

How can a glowing sphere that circles above a flat surface, focus it's light? Plug a light bulb into the socket of the room you're in now without a shade and tell me where the darkness is.

Actually he is right that a spherical sun would cast a circular area of light on a plane. However, the area would have a different shape than the one mapped from the surface of a sphere with the same light shining on it. Tom Bishop acknowledges the fact that the sunlight pattern would be different on a sphere:

Is it not another issue that if the sun does not act as a spotlight it should cast light on the moon?

"The Sun is a sphere. It has a diameter of 32 miles and is located approximately 3000 miles above the surface of the earth." (this is according to the flat earth wiki)

3000 miles is really really far. A disc that is 32 miles across is very very small, comparatively.

3000 miles is roughly the distance from New York to LA, so if you were to stand in New York with a clear and unobstructed line of site between you and LA, and there was a building that was 32 miles long, than you would be able to see it very clearly.

Right?

Right??

WRONG!!! Theres no way. The sheer distance involved would render any such object so miniscule that it would be impossible to detect with the human eye.

And yet we are expected to believe that the sun and moon are only 32 miles across yet 3000 miles away, and yet they can be clearly seen and they provide much light for us earthlings.

Baloney!!!

you said that you would not be able to see the sun from 3000 miles away ... does it makes more sense seeing something from 93 million miles away ...ha ha ha ... right ... so do you think that the sun could be closer then 3,000 miles then???

I know this is 3 years too late but how about using:

Beta = 2*ATAN(16/3000)?

Xi

Let's break it down to a scale most of us are familiar with...the view from and airliner window.

The 3000:32 ratio is roughly the same as the size of a football field from the cruising altitude of an airliner.  So, if the size of the field from this height is the same as the size of the moon the field should be very easy to find from your airliner window, no?  It is tiny.  If not for the running track that surrounds most school football fields in the US the field would be nearly impossible to find,  From that height the field sure looks a lot smaller than the moon or sun to me..  What about you?

Just to let you know, the 3000 mile and 32 mile measurements do actually work out.  Even Vsauce said that mathematically, it is correct, as long as you assume the Earth is flat and not round.  I don't know how you figure a 100 to one ratio is like looking at a football from an airplane or whatever jumbled thought you were trying to convey to us. 

These measurements do not work if several observations are made from different locations at the same time.

These measurements do not work if several observations are made from different locations at the same time.

Obviously they would be closest to the observer directly underneath and further from observers who were further away.

Quote from: inquisitive on September 14, 2015, 10:52:56 AM

These measurements do not work if several observations are made from different locations at the same time.

Obviously they would be closest to the observer directly underneath and further from observers who were further away.

The next equinox is on the 22rd of September. During an equinox, the sun rises directly in the east on every location on the planet. Also on this day, every location on earth receives 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness.  Obviously, on the flat earth this could never happen, so that's just blown the FE model to bits right then and there.

Just to let you know, the 3000 mile and 32 mile measurements do actually work out. 

In some respects, in many fundamental ones they don't.  For a start, the sun will never meet the horizon, let alone set below it.

Obviously, on the flat earth this could never happen, so that's just blown the FE model to bits right then and there.

Your response seems like something for the debate section rather than FE Q&A.